


From Circus to Conception in One Easy Step

by piecesofalice



Category: Psych
Genre: Babyfic, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofalice/pseuds/piecesofalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The type of story you'd love to tell your kids, if only they'd believe it and not think you were both making it up for some weirdo parent reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Circus to Conception in One Easy Step

**Author's Note:**

> Title (and egging on) courtesy of jesshelga.

_With voices out of nowhere  
Put on specially by the children for a lark_   
"Cry Baby Cry", The Beatles

  
\--

  
There’s that moment in a woman’s life when the switch is clicked and your feet are swollen and absolute fear overtakes every fibre of your being.

  
That moment? Is unbearably sticky and damp, and unexpected but completely expected. It’s confusing and your breath comes in heavy gasps and you’re trying _so hard_ to remember if the iron’s on, but Oprah’s voice is coming at you from the television you weren’t really watching and _where the hell is my phone?_

  
Juliet O’Hara is standing in her living room having this moment. Her fingers feel fat – and they are, horribly – but she manages to flip her phone open and press the right numbers.

  
“Carlton?” She keeps her voice as steady as she can, because her shoes are wet and that’s kind of more disconcerting than the pain, “Uh, my water’s just broke.”

  
She’s pretty certain from the sound that comes through the phone that he’s either fallen off his chair or slammed into a filing cabinet, and she smiles.

  
Then grimaces, because she’s in pain and _holy crap_, she begins to yell down the phone and everything sort of flies into a strange, wet blur.

  
\--

  
The conception wasn’t nearly as weird as the events leading up to it.

  
There was an elephant, two perps with two sawn-off shotguns and a whole lotta blow. Selling drugs through a three-ringed circus with midgets and a bearded lady, apparently, and everyone had felt like they were stuck in _Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!_, even after the shock of a mini-shoot out and Buzz’s admission he’d wanted to be a clown as a kid.

  
In retrospect, Juliet kind of wishes they’d gone out and gotten drunk and _then_ ended up with each others faces in each other’s laps. It would sound better, maybe, or make more sense; more sense than giving your partner a ride home because his car had been damaged in the circus rumble and he’d remembered he still had some paperwork beside his bed and did you want to take it home to finish your report?

  
Juliet had only been to his house twice, maybe three times, but she noticed that the pictures of Victoria that had been so prevalent, were gone.

  
\---

  
No alcohol, just adrenaline left over from a hardly-even-worth-mentioning brush with death, and Juliet wondered when she forced her mouth down onto Carlton’s whether it was some sort of odd circus kink she’d not worked out in her youth.

  
Of course it wasn’t, and she knew that it was probably the moment when he’d pressed himself against her when the bullet started flying; one arm over her head and the other around her waist and she felt so safe, it was like home.

  
Protection. That was a turn on for Juliet. That split-second between the blast of gunfire in her ears and his body over hers, and she knew.

  
They weren’t partners anymore. They were _partners_.

  
So they slept together, and she initiated it, and he had spent the five minutes before she started to undress him blustering and waffling and trying to push her out the door, but that just drove it home to her that he _wanted this too_.

  
They didn’t think of condoms because it didn’t seem necessary. She tried to get her head around this, as he kept his eyes connected with hers and she didn’t look away like she would have before, but it all seemed interconnected and unusually normal.

  
Yes, he was good lover and yes, it felt like love and yes, she laughed at him and rolled her eyes when the foreplay became hungry and competitive and yes, she orgasmed and really, she could only count the amount of times she had on one – maybe two – hands.

  
Later, he turned his face to the wall and she said his name to bring him back, grabbing his hands and making him touch her face and kiss her cheeks until he did it by his own accord.

  
In the early morning, as the conception started to happen, he spoke to her of police codes with his body against hers and his hands in her hair, and she knew it was something like a love song.

  
\--

  
“What are you doing, O’Hara?”

  
“Counting.”

  
“Two comes after three.”

  
“Ha ha.”

  
“When you’re finished with that oh-so-stressful task, here’s the coroner’s report from -“

  
“I think I’m pregnant.”

  
\--

  
They stood side by side in her bathroom. Of course, she wouldn’t let him be there while she peed, but he had stood outside the door, pacing and running his hands through his hair until it stuck up like a hipster kid gone wrong.

  
Now they watched, as white turned to blue-line, his hands on his hips and hers in a fist and there was silence.

  
She felt sick.

  
Then she looked at his face, and he was looking back at her, a smile so wide she thought she was looking at the sun.

  
\--

  
“What are you, the most fertile woman on the planet?”

  
Juliet rolled her eyes, and pushed a can of chicken soup into the shopping cart.

  
“Is that what you’re going to say for another five months? Every time we consider buying stuff for this baby?”

  
Carlton was leaning on the cart, his tie long gone and his attention fixed on the back of a packet of Cap’n Crunch.

  
“Can you eat this?”

  
”Why not?”

  
“It pure sugar. We do not need a hyperactive two year old running around our house, ripping up the carpet, being a juvenile delinquent.”

  
_Our_ house?

  
“Carlton, why are **you** here while I do **my** grocery shopping?”

  
The mumble that came out of his mouth could have been “because we should move in together” or “Beaton says movies in Topeka”, but they didn’t know anyone by that name, nor were there plans for film viewing in Kansas, so she kissed him hard and started talking about curtains.

  
Carlton put the Cap’n Crunch back, and tried not to grin like a loon.

  
\--

  
Her stomach almost took over the station. She was brought organic treats by Shawn everyday, Gus piled her up with natal vitamins and sound medical advice, and Vick took her to Macy’s to stock up on plastic nipples and voluminous dresses Juliet didn’t think she’d have to wear for another ten years.

  
“Who’s the father?” she whispered, over the 0-2 year old romper suits, and Juliet knew the source of all the gossip for the last eight months had been this very question.

  
Because, yes, they kept it a secret, and yes, they were aware everyone probably knew anyway. Because Shawn stared at her like a lost puppy sometimes and Vick would let it slip that she knew Juliet’s apartment was no longer listed on her file.

  
But they never said anything, just let her stomach grow; until the baby shower when they kissed in front of all their friends and family and the cheering was overwhelming.

  
“About time,” Vick whispered into her ear and kissed her on the cheek like a friend.

  
\--

  
He proposed in the supply closet.

  
He was nervous, and she held her breath, because she was now on maternity leave and could hardly fit in the small space.

  
“I just came to bring you a sandwich,” she said, and he gaped at her like she’d said no.

  
The baby kicked against her skin and she grabbed his hand, made him feel it and said yes.

  
She may have cried a little, but that was just the hormones, so she covered up by refusing to have a ceremony until she could fit into a proper dress, and he just laughed with her at the absurdity of it all.

  
\--

  
“IF YOU DON’T SHUT UP AND TELL THE DOCTOR I WANT DRUGS, I WILL KILL YOU.”

  
In her mind, the pain was larger than her words, so she had to shout at him. He was sweating and so was she, as the nurse administered the epidural and something like relief spread over her.

  
It still hurt like a bitch, don’t get the wrong idea. But Carlton held her hand and breathed moronically, like they’d learnt in Lamaze, and she started laughing at the ridiculousness of having a relationship and a home and a _child_ with this impossible, beautiful man she had always called partner.

  
Their little girl started to cry, big noises from a tiny mouth, and they both stopped and looked, Carlton only moving again to cut the cord and stare at awe at what they’d created.

  
”Well done,” the doctor smiled, handing her a tiny, red human that wriggled and pulsated in her arms. A girl. A precious girl, the most perfect thing they’d ever made.

  
“Well done,” her partner smiled, and he kissed her all over her face and gripped her hand until it was blue. “I love you,” and this time, she cried for real.

  
\--

  
_Fin._

  
\--


End file.
